The Book of Witches

In this remarkable work, O.M. Hueffer casts both a searching and sympathetic eye upon witchcraft through the ages. “I have attempted nothing so ambitious as a large-scale Ordnance Map of Witchland,” he writes, “rather I have endeavoured to produce a picture from which a general impression may be gained. I have chosen, that is to say, from the enormous mass of material only so much as seemed necessary for my immediate purpose, and on my lack of judgment be the blame for any undesirable hiatus. I have sought, again, to show whence the witch came and why, as well as what she was and is; to point out, further, how necessary she is and must be to the happiness of mankind, and how great the responsibility of those who, disbelieving in her themselves, seek to infect others with their scepticism. We have few picturesque excrescences left upon this age of smoothly-running machine-wheels, certainly we cannot spare one of the most time-honoured and romantic of any.”

The sixteen chapters are as follows:

I. On a Possible Revival of Witchcraft
II. A Sabbath-General
III. The Origins of the Witch
IV. The Half-Way Worlds
V. The Witch’s Attributes
VI. Some Representative English Witches
VII. The Witch of Antiquity
VIII. The Witch in Greece and Rome
IX. The From Paganism to Christianity
X. The Witch-Bull and Its Effects
XI. The Later Persecutions in England
XII. Persecutions in Scotland
XIII. Other Persecutions
XIV. Philtres, Charms and Potions
XV. The Witch in Fiction
XVI. Some Witches of To-Day